Paterson (Key Seat)

(NSW)

NSW Hunter Region

Marginal Liberal 1.4%

Election Result

MP

Bob Baldwin (LIB) since 2001, having also represented the seat 1996-1998.

Profile

Based in the lower Hunter Valley and lower NSW North Coast, Paterson covers 9,632 sq.km, including the Hunter River centres of Beresfield and Raymond Terrace, the resort towns around Port Stephens, agricultural districts between Dungog and Gloucester, and the holiday and retirement haven of Forster and Tuncurry. Paterson includes Hawkes Nest on the northern side of Port Stephens, where Prime Minister Howard and his family used to spend their summer holidays.

History/Trivia

Re-created by the 1993 redistribution, Paterson previously existed 1949-84. It was named after poet and author Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson, though there is dispute that the seat may have originally been named after Colonel William Paterson, an early explorer of the Hunter region. Labor lost the seat with a swing of 3.7% in 1996, one of the smallest swings in the state, but Labor won the seat back in 1998 despite the Liberal Party throwing everything at the seat and restricting the swing to just 1.6%. The combination of a redistribution and a swing to the Coalition defeated Labor's Bob Horne for the second time in 2001, electing Liberal Bob Baldwin for the second time. With the last three elections fought between these two candidates, the Newcastle Herald ran a column called 'The two Bob watch' in covering the 2001 campaign.

2-Party Booth Result

The Liberal Party won 53 of the 73 booths at the 2001 election, its vote ranging from 28.7% at Woodberry to 74.2% at Gloucester Hospital. However, Labor wins most of the larger booths at the Hunter Valley end of the electorate, the Liberal Party winning big majorities in the smaller rural booths and also doing well in the retirement havens along the coast.

Main Candidates

Sitting MP Bob Baldwin has contested four Federal election now for two wins (1996, 2001) and two defeats (Dobell in 1993, Paterson in 1998). He will be opposed by Labor's Giovanna Kozary, a TAFE teacher and former Port Stephens Councillor.

Assessment

Having changed hands at the last three elections, any swing back to Labor in NSW would make it the fourth election in a row that the sitting MP has been defeated. Alternatively, a Bob Baldwin victory would make him the first MP to be re-elected in this seat since it was re-created in 1993.